Dear Emerson,--There had been a long time without direct news
from you, till four days ago your Letter arrived. This day I
understand to be the ultimate limit of the American Mail;
yesterday, had it not been Sunday, would have been the limit: I
write a line, therefore, though in very great haste.
Poor Sterling, even I now begin to fear, is in a very bad way.
He had two successive attacks of spitting of blood, some three
months ago or more; the second attack of such violence, and his
previous condition then so weak, that the Doctor as good as gave
up hope,--the poor Patient himself had from the first given it
up. Our poor Friend has had so many attacks of that nature, and
so rapidly always rallied from them, I gave no ear to these
sinister prognostics; but now that I see the summer influences
passing over him without visible improvement, and our good
weather looking towards a close without so much strength added as
will authorize even a new voyage to Madeira;--I too am at last
joining in the general discouragement; all the sadder to me that
I shut it out so long. Sir James Clark, our best-accredited
Physician for such diseases, declares that Life, for certain
months, may linger, with great pain; but that recovery is not to
be expected. Great part of the lungs, it appears, is totally
unserviceable for respiration; from the remainder, especially in
times of coughing, it is with the greatest difficulty that breath
enough is obtained. Our poor Patient passes the night in a
sitting posture; cannot lie down: that fact sticks with me ever
since I heard it! He is very weak, very pale; still "writes a
great deal daily"; but does not wish to see anybody; declines
to "see even Carlyle," who offered to go to him. His only
Brother, Anthony Sterling, a hardy soldier, lately withdrawn from
the Army, and settled in this quarter, whom we often communicate
with, is about going down to the Isle of Wight this week: he saw
John four days ago, and brings nothing but bad news,--of which
indeed this removal of his to the neighborhood of the scene is a
practical testimony. The old Father, a Widower for the last two
years, and very lonely and dispirited, seems getting feebler and
feebler: he was here yesterday: a pathetic kind of spectacle to
us. Alas, alas! But what can be said? I say Nothing; I have
written only one Note to Sterling: I feel it probable that I
shall never see him more,--nor his like again in this world. His
disease, as I have from of old construed it, is a burning of him
up by his own fire. The restless vehemence of the man,
struggling in all ways these many years to find a legitimate
outlet, and finding, except for transitory, unsatisfactory
coruscations, none, has undermined its Clay Prison in the weakest
point (which proves to be the lungs), and will make outlet
_there._ My poor Sterling! It is an old tragedy; and very
stern whenever it repeats itself of new.
Today I get answer about Alfred Tennyson: all is right on that
side. Moxon informs me that the Russell Books and Letter arrived
duly, and were duly forwarded and safely received; nay, farther,
that Tennyson is now in Town, and means to come and see me. Of
this latter result I shall be very glad: Alfred is one of the
few British or Foreign Figures (a not increasing number I think!)
who are and remain beautiful to me;--a true human soul, or some
authentic approximation thereto, to whom your own soul can say,
Brother!--However, I doubt he will not come; he often skips me,
in these brief visits to Town; skips everybody indeed; being a
man solitary and sad, as certain men are, dwelling in an element
of gloom,--carrying a bit of Chaos about him, in short, which he
is manufacturing into Cosmos!
Alfred is the son of a Lincolnshire Gentleman Farmer, I think;
indeed, you see in his verses that he is a native of "moated
granges," and green, fat pastures, not of mountains and their
torrents and storms. He had his breeding at Cambridge, as if for
the Law or Church; being master of a small annuity on his
Father's decease, he preferred clubbing with his Mother and some
Sisters, to live unpromoted and write Poems. In this way he
lives still, now here, now there; the family always within reach
of London, never in it; he himself making rare and brief visits,
lodging in some old comrade's rooms. I think he must be under
forty, not much under it. One of the finest-looking men in the
world. A great shock of rough dusty-dark hair; bright-laughing
hazel eyes; massive aquiline face, most massive yet most
delicate; of sallow-brown complexion, almost Indian-looking;
clothes cynically loose, free-and-easy;--smokes infinite tobacco.
His voice is musical metallic,--fit for loud laughter and
piercing wail, and all that may lie between; speech, and
speculation free and plenteous: I do not meet, in these late
decades, such company over a pipe!--We shall see what he will
grow to. He is often unwell; very chaotic,--his way is through
Chaos and the Bottomless and Pathless; not handy for making out
many miles upon. (O Paper!)
I trust there is now joy in place of pain in the House at
Concord, and a certain Mother grateful again to the Supreme
Powers! We are all in our customary health here, or nearly so;
my Wife has been in Lancashire, among her kindred there, for a
month lately: our swollen City is getting empty and still; we
think of trying an Autumn _here_ this time.--Get your Book ready;
there are readers ready for it! And be busy and victorious!
Ever Yours,
T. Carlyle
My _History_ is frightful! If I live, it is like to be
completed; but whether I shall live, and not rather be buried
alive, broken-hearted, in the Serbonian Quagmires of English
Stupidity, and so sleep beside Cromwell, often seems uncertain.
Erebus has no uglier, brutaler element. Let us say nothing of
it. Let us do it, or leave it to the Devils. _Ay de mi!_